Page:Life Among the Piutes.djvu/45

 “They are talking about us. You see they are looking this way.”

Sister said, “Oh, mother, I hope grandpa will not do such a wicked thing as to give me to those bad men.”

Oh, how my heart beat! I saw grandpa shake his head, and he looked mad with them. He came away and left them standing there. From that day my grandma took my sister under her care, and we got along nicely.

Then we started for our home, and after travelling some time we arrived at the head of Carson River. There we met some of our people, and they told us some very bad news, indeed, which made us all cry. They said almost all the tribe had died off, and if one of a family got sick it was a sure thing that the whole family would die. He said the white men had poisoned the Humboldt River, and our people had drank the water and died off. Grandpa said,—

“Is my son dead?”

“No, he has been in the mountains all the time, and all who have been there are all right.”

The men said a great many of our relations had died off.

We staid there all night, and the next day our hair was all cut off. My sister and my mother had such beautiful hair!

So grandpa said to the man,—

“Go and tell our people we are coming. Send them to each other, and tell my son to come to meet us.”

So we went on our journey, and after travelling three days more we came to a place called Genoa, on the west side of Carson River, at the very place where I had first seen a white man. A saw-mill and a grist-mill were there, and five more houses. We camped in the very same place where we did before. We staid there a long time waiting